The
Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Germany is one of the many museums that
began to collect posters at the time of the first affichomania, around 1900.
During the final days of World War 2, the whole collection, including its
documentation, was devastated by a fire, but the museum started to reconstruct it,
based on records from its poster exhibition in 1930. It is now back to a count of
15'000 and keeps adding contemporary posters to its high quality holdings.

The collection today is complete enough to provide examples for a representative
history of posters from the early days of Cheret (the first poster shown in the
book is from 1875), Lautrec or Steinlen
to the artist posters of Beuys, Martin Kippenberger or Arnulf Rainer of the 1980's,
and this is just what Martina Harms, the curator of the exhibition, has written
with this catalogue.

Her strategy, to show relatively few posters but discuss them in detail and show them
in large size, works very well. The illustrations are of such a quality that you
can easily read artist's signatures and printer names and even count eyelashes on
some posters. The text page opposite
each poster attests to thorough research, is rich in fascinating detail, and places
the work in historic and artistic context. In addition, a literature reference to the poster,
a short biography of the designer, and other useful information is right there beside
the picture. The unknown book designer (&quotKehrer Heidelberg&quot) arranged it all
so expertly that you are not even aware of how well you are treated as a reader.
Unspectacular, but typography at it's best.

Lait pur sterilise 1894, Theophile Steinlen

Internationale Hygiene-Ausstellung 1911, Franz von Stuck

Miete Strom Gas 1986, Martin Kippenberger
Poster for the exhibition of the artist at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt

The book starts with an encyclopedic article on poster history, and the posters
themselves are grouped into chapters like The beginning of modern picture posters
in Paris,
Early Posters in Great Britain and the USA, in Belgium, Germany, in Vienna. A special
chapter is dedicated to the early Darmstadt artists Behrens, Olbrich, Christiansen,
Cissarz, Kleukens and Hoetger.

A curious period of artistic stagnation then befalls the poster world between
1930 until about 1950, when french, swiss and polish designers begin to blossom again, and
this time span is documented with Savignac, Leupin, Tomaszewski, to name but a few.
The review concludes with international artist posters. About the only designer that
I really miss among the 80 that are chosen is Cassandre.

The catalogue is highly recommended for anyone looking for a short history of posters,
but would also grace the library of the connoisseur.

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page created on May 4, 1998 / this section is part of Rene Wanner's Poster Page
/